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PSE fines electronics holding firm for disclosure violations

By Denise A. Valdez, Reporter

CIRTEK Holdings Philippines Corp. has been fined by the Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) for violations of its disclosure rules and doing transactions during black-out period.

In a publication of penalties uploaded on its website on Wednesday, the PSE said it has imposed sanctions on the electronics manufacturer for failure to comply with its disclosure requirements for publicly listed firms.

The violation, it said, are as follows: (i) Inaccurate disclosure of the transaction involving Cirtek shares by its subsidiary; (ii) delayed and non-disclosure of the transactions of Cirtek shares by its subsidiary; (iii) non-disclosure of the changes in the indirect ownership of directors/principal officers; and (iv) transactions of directors/principal officers during the black-out period.

According to Article VIII Section 2 of the PSE’s Consolidated Listing and Disclosure Rules, failure to comply with its unstructured disclosure requirements, or disclosures about corporate developments, would warrant a company a fine of P50,000 for the first violation, P75,000 for the second violation of a similar nature, suspension of trading for one month for the third violation and delisting for the fourth violation.

An additional fine of P1,000 per day is also imposed on violators for each trading day the offense continues.

BusinessWorld asked the PSE and Cirtek for the specific amount of the fine imposed on the latter, but neither were able to provide the figure as of deadline time.

After the PSE’s disclosure, shares in Cirtek at the stock exchange lost 47 centavos or 6.65% to close at P6.60 each on Wednesday.

In the first nine months of 2019, Cirtek recorded an attributable net income of $5.53 million, surging from $1.95 million in the same period in 2018. The growth came amid a 27% rise in its gross revenues to $88.48 million.

Global PC shipments rise 2.3%; China’s Lenovo remains no. 1

WORLDWIDE shipments of personal computers increased 2.3% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, continuing a 2019 trend fueled by commercial customers upgrading to Microsoft Corp.’s new operating system.

Lenovo Group Ltd. held onto the top spot with almost 25% of the market amid a quest by PC makers to find new types of machines to entice customers.

PC shipments climbed to 70.6 million units in the period that ended Dec. 31, researcher Gartner Inc. said Monday in a report. Competing firm IDC pegged the shipments at 71.8 million units, a 4.8% rise. For the year, the PC market grew for the first time since 2011, both firms said.

For a third consecutive quarter, manufacturers received a boost from corporate clients upgrading devices to get access to Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system. Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 7 Tuesday, according to the company’s website.

With corporate upgrades expected to taper off this year, PC makers have searched for ways to shake up a market that has stagnated for years. Beijing-based Lenovo last week debuted a laptop with a folding-screen at the CES consumer technology show in Las Vegas. Dell Technologies Inc. also unveiled two concepts that featured folding screens.

“Despite the positivity surrounding 2019, the next twelve to eighteen months will be challenging for traditional PCs as the majority of Windows 10 upgrades will be in the rearview mirror and lingering concerns around component shortages and trade negotiations get ironed out,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. “Although new technologies such as 5G and dual- and folding-screen devices along with an uptake in gaming PCs will provide an uplift, these will take some time to coalesce.”

HP Inc. maintained the global No. 2 spot with 22.8% of the market during the quarter. The US company has sought to make its devices more stylish and has also entered the lucrative gaming PC market. Dell was again the third-largest seller, and its 12% year-over-year increase in shipments was the biggest gain of any major manufacturer in the quarter. The company focuses on selling PCs to corporate clients, to bolster profit margins through add-on software and services. Apple Inc. came in fourth place with 7.5% of the worldwide market. — Bloomberg

Court rejects move to block cap on Angkas bikers

By Arjay L. Balinbin, Reporter

A MANDALUYONG court has denied the petition of the bikers of ride-hailing platform Angkas for another temporary restraining order (TRO) against the government’s new policy on motorcycle taxis.

In an order dated Jan. 10, the Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 212 said the petitioner’s application against the enforcement of Section 10 of the Revised General Guidelines for the Pilot Implementation of Motorcycle Taxis “is also the same action being sought in the main case of injunction.”

Section 10 limits the participating riders in the pilot program to 30,000 for Metro Manila and 9,000 for Metro Cebu. The number of riders is to be divided evenly among qualified ride-hailing platform providers.

The order, signed by Judge Rizalina T. Capco-Umali, said “the court is mindful that as much as possible avoid issuing writ which would effectively dispose of the main case without trial and/or due process.”

On Jan. 6, the bikers of Angkas (DBDOYC, Inc.) filed a petition for a 72-hour TRO, regular TRO and/or writ of preliminary injunction against the implementation by respondents Department of Transportation and Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board of the new motorcycle pilot program policy that puts a cap on the number of bikers.

The petition for a TRO also seeks to restrain the respondents from “apprehending any Angkas rider” and from “performing any act that limits and impairs their rights to deal with and continue with their contracts with Angkas.”

“The presumption of regularity of official acts may be rebutted by affirmative evidence or irregularity or failure to perform a duty. The presumption, however, prevails until it is overcome by no less than clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. Thus, unless the presumption is rebutted, it becomes conclusive,” the court also said in its order.

This development comes after the Angkas bikers secured a 72-hour hold order from a Mandaluyong court blocking the same policy. The order was signed by Mandaluyong City RTC Vice/Acting Executive Judge Ofelia L. Calo on Jan. 6.

On Jan. 9, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 223 issued a 20-day TRO against the policy. The petition for the TRO was filed by Angkas itself, which also asked the court to exclude JoyRide (We Move Things Philippines, Inc.) and Move It (We-Load Transcargo Corp.) from the pilot program for motorcycle taxis that is being implemented by the government’s technical working group (TWG).

The court, however, did not grant the company’s petition to restrain the respondents from allowing the inclusion of JoyRide and Move It in the pilot program.

“When the acts sought to be prevented by injunction or prohibition have already been performed or completed prior to the filing of the injunction suit, nothing more can be enjoined or restrained; a writ of injunction then becomes moot and academic, and the court, by mere issuance of the writ, can no longer stop or undo the act,” the court said in its order dated Jan. 9, as signed by Judge Catherine P. Manodon.

On Angkas’ petition for a TRO against the implementation of the TWG’s new guidelines that limit the number of bikers during the pilot test, the Quezon City court “finds that irreparable injury would be suffered by the plaintiff” if the implementation of the policy “is not restrained before the matter of the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction is heard.”

Travel app Omio the latest start-up to take on North America

BERLIN — Berlin-based online travel company Omio is launching operations in North America, joining other European mobility and fintech startups in seeking to scale up operations in the world’s top travel and tourism market.

Omio (https://www.omio.com), until its rebranding last year called GoEuro, competes with Britain’s Trainline in European rail travel, but also offers journey planning and ticketing for buses and flights via a smartphone app.

Naren Shaam, Omio’s Indian-born, Harvard-educated founder and CEO, said the US and Canadian markets were a logical next step after the acquisition in October of Rome2Rio (https://www.rome2rio.com), an Australian specialist in route discovery.

“There are two fundamental pillars that drive us as a company. The first is global inventory for transport is not on a single product,” Shaam, 37, said in an interview at Omio’s headquarters in Berlin’s fashionable Prenzlauer Berg district.

“The second pillar that drives us is that travel inherently is connected — and the products and the technology solutions today don’t offer a connected experience.”

It is partnering initially with rail operators Amtrak, VIA Rail Canada; airlines Delta and United, and bus companies OurBus and Academy, with more expected to follow.

Shaam moved to Berlin eight years ago to found the business and now has a following of 27 million monthly active users. Omio, like many start-ups, does not publish financial results.

It has attracted $296 million in investor funding. The last round in October 2018 was led by Swedish investor Kinnevik, Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek and Asia-focused private equity fund Hillhouse Capital.

AGGREGATOR VS PROVIDER
Omio follows German travel app FlixMobility into North America but the two take different approaches. It is an aggregator whereas the Munich-based start-up works with bus and train firms operating under its brand.

Shaam said the value in the business is created by its ability to manage complexity in ground travel, which doesn’t have standardized procedures as in the airline sector.

“It’s a full-service solution. It’s not just a meta search engine that is discovery based,” he said.

In the first stage of its North American expansion, Omio will offer ticketing for more than 23,000 train and bus routes, as well as flights. It estimates the “addressable” market there at $138 billion for air travel, and $8 billion for ground.

Shaam is counting on North American travelers, who make up 10% of Omio’s user base, becoming early adopters. And, he says, offering a choice of travel options along major corridors — such as the US East Coast — makes good sense. — Reuters

ADB to help in drafting new water contracts, says Justice secretary

By Vann Marlo M. Villegas, Reporter

THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) will help as consultants in the drafting of the new contracts of Metro Manila’s water concessionaires, Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra said.

He said Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III had informed him that his team would engage consultants from the ADB to revise the contracts, which President Rodrigo R. Duterte previously said contain “onerous provisions.”

He said the Finance department would probably discuss in the meeting in Malacañang on Wednesday the involvement of the Manila-based regional bank.

“I presume that one of the matters that we are going to take up mamaya (later, Jan. 15) is the engagement of the ADB consultants for the purpose of guiding the government side in the matter of revision economic and financial terms of the water concession agreement,” he said in a news forum.

Mr. Duterte said last week that the government would offer new contracts to Manila Water Co., Inc. and Maynilad Water Services, Inc. If rejected by the concessionaires, he said he would push for the takeover by the state of water distribution services. He also threatened to file criminal charges against them.

Late last year, Mr. Guevarra said his department had found onerous provisions in the contracts forged by the water concessionaires with state-led Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System. He cited a provision that calls for non-interference of the government in rate-setting and indemnity if it interfered.

While legal and constitutional issues are being ironed out, the Justice secretary said he would wait for the input of the Finance department on the revised contracts.

“After all in the previous contracts, the Department of Finance was heavily involved. In the same manner sila rin ’yung mai-involve (they will be involved) in the negotiation with respect to the financial terms and economic terms for example the water rate setting mechanism, ano ’yung (what) factors na dapat i-consider dyan (should be considered), the inflation rate, exchange rate what expenditure can be validly included, what cannot be, taxes, and so forth and so on,” he said in the forum.

He also said he does not see the government sitting down with the concessionaires “anytime soon,” saying the whole process could take up to six months.

The department also said the extension of the 1997 contract until 2037, 12 to 13 years before its initial expiration in 2022 is irregular.

The President also said the concessionaires committed economic sabotage following the indemnity award won by them in an arbitration court.

Manila Water disclosed last year that an arbitration court ruled in their favor, ordering the government to indemnify them P7.39 billion for the losses it suffered.

A Singapore court last year also upheld Maynilad’s P3.4 billion indemnity.

Both concessionaires said that they would not collect the award in the arbitral ruling.

TDF yields decline despite lower demand

YIELDS ON term deposits continued to slip on Wednesday despite lower bids, with the market expecting monetary easing this quarter, as hinted on by the central bank chief.

Bids for the term deposit facility (TDF) of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) amounted to P274.15 billion on Wednesday, exceeding the P160 billion on offer, according to data from the central bank.

However, this week’s total tenders slipped compared to the P276.224 billion in bids the central bank received last week against the P120 billion on the auction block.

“Total tenders amounted to P274.15 billion with oversubscriptions in all three TDF tenors as liquidity gradually returns following the holiday spending,” BSP Deputy Governor Francisco G. Dakila, Jr. said in a note sent to reporters on Wednesday.

Banks’ tenders for the seven-day papers hit P95.282 billion in total, going beyond the P60 billion auctioned off by the central bank but failing to beat the P102.182 billion worth of tenders seen last week for the P40 billion on offer.

Rates for the one-week deposits were seen from 4% to 4.125%, a slightly wider range compared to the 4.08%-4.20% seen a week ago. The average rate for the papers clocked in at 4.0851%, slipping by 7.9 basis points (bps) from last week’s 4.1641%.

On the other hand, bids for term deposits with a two-week tenor amounted to P103.847 billion, more than double the P50 billion offered by BSP and also surpassing the P88.906 billion worth of tenders seen last week against the P40 billion on offer.

Lenders asked for returns ranging from 4% to 4.15%, a slightly wider band compared to the 4.125% to 4.2544% range seen on Jan. 8. The average rate for the 14-day papers was at 4.1065%, down 12.99 bps from the 4.2364% logged last week.

Meanwhile, tenders for the 28-day papers totaled P75.021 billion, higher than the P50 billion up for grabs but failing to beat the P85.136 billion in bids seen last week for the P40-billion offer.

Yields on the one-month papers ranged from 4.0795% to 4.22%, a slimmer band compared to the 4.125% to 4.2544% margin seen last week. This caused the average rate to settle at 4.1502%, dropping by 12.02 bps from the previous auction’s 4.2704%.

Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Chief Economist Michael L. Ricafort said the yield movements may still be on the back of signals from the central bank of impending key policy rate cuts that could be pushed as early as the first quarter of the year.

“The latest decline in BSP TDF auction yields may also still be attributed to the recent signals by BSP Governor [Benjamin E.] Diokno about a possible 0.25 [basis points] cut in local policy rates within the first quarter of 2020, especially now that the tensions already eased between the US and Iran and global oil prices already declined to new one-month lows,” Mr. Ricafort said in an e-mail.

Mr. Diokno said earlier this month that they will look at data and may consider a 25-bp cut within this quarter.

The policy-setting Monetary Board slashed rates by a total of 75 bps in 2019, partially dialing back the 175 bps in hikes implemented in 2018 due to soaring inflation.

Benchmark interest rates currently stand at four percent for the overnight reverse repurchase facility while the overnight deposit and lending rates are at 3.5% and 4.5%, respectively.

Meanwhile, last week, Reuters reported that tensions between Washington and Tehran appear to have subsided after the retaliatory strike of Iran on US forces stationed in Iraq after the US killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.

US President Donald J. Trump said then that no Americans were hurt in the said attacks.

“Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the strike “concluded” their response to the killing of Mr. Soleimani. — Luz Wendy T. Noble with Reuters

Adobe brings one of its last legacy products to the cloud

ADOBE Inc. unveiled a cloud-based system to help clients build websites, bringing one of its last legacy products to the cloud almost a decade after shifting to internet-based software.

The new content management system already is being used by some customers, the San Jose, California-based company said Monday in a statement. The software maker announced the service at the National Retail Federation conference in New York.

Adobe is the largest vendor for enterprise customers in a $3.8 billion market for software that builds websites and manages digital assets, according to data from research firm IDC. The company said it’s the first to provide a purely cloud-computing based solution to large business clients. The software maker currently manages 15 billion web page visits per day and more than 50 million digital assets, including images and videos, across its customer base. Wix.com Ltd. and closely held Squarespace are among the competitors in the field.

Companies are increasingly attempting to differentiate themselves with personalized customer experiences, led by websites and marketing materials. Adobe’s “Experience Manager” is also being used to power in-store, interactive screens that retailers have begun using to teach shoppers more about their products.

Adobe has spent almost four decades quietly dominating small patches of the technology industry. While it is synonymous for its creative and design software, led by Photoshop, the company has continually invested in new products to maintain leading positions in areas such as marketing, advertising, and customer experience software. The product expansion fueled a 24% revenue increase last year. Wall Street responded favorably, with Adobe’s stock climbing 46% in 2019.

Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen moved much of Adobe’s product suite to the internet in 2011, leading to years of growing revenue and setting an example followed by other software makers, including Microsoft Corp. For years, clients who used content management systems weren’t ready to change their way of doing things, Loni Stark, a senior director of strategy and product marketing at Adobe, said in an interview. But added pressure on brands to modernize with sophisticated websites and applications have changed their calculations.

Experience Manager’s transition to the cloud “means companies can deliver content faster and be always current on the latest capabilities we’re delivering out there,” Stark said.

Adobe Experience Manager was previously available as a hosted service, with the software maker managing the infrastructure for clients. But it relied on old-school software that required lengthy download periods for patches and updates, rather than the continuous updates available with internet-based software. — Bloomberg

Goodyear’s local team to expand global IT services

THE Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. announced on Wednesday its plans to expand its information technology (IT) services in the Philippine capital.

The tire company, which has a presence in 22 countries, said in a statement that it is “expanding its Information Technology (IT) team and capabilities in Manila, Philippines,” which is a “strategic Global Business Services (GBS) center for Goodyear that serves as a solution-oriented, trusted advisor to support its operations around the world.”

It said its IT team in Manila is currently working with global IT centers in Akron, United States; Luxembourg; Singapore; Hanau, Germany and San Paolo, Brazil.

The company expects that its expansion in Manila will further improve the delivery of its IT services. It added that the expansion is also expected to provide job opportunities for Filipino IT professionals.

Goodyear said it will have opportunities in SAP (systems, applications, products), application development, digital operations, cyber security, quality assurance, business intelligence and IT infrastructure.

“At Goodyear, we’ve built our foundation on a commitment to forward-thinking innovation, and we pride ourselves on attracting and retaining the very best talent by fostering new ideas, teamwork, open communication and career advancement opportunities,” the company’s IT delivery center in Manila said.

“Joining Goodyear’s GBS IT Delivery Center team in Manila will allow you to grow your career by getting exposure to leading technologies, while becoming part of Goodyear’s global projects and helping drive innovative solutions for future mobility,” it added. — Arjay Balinbin

UBS wealth management starts cutting jobs in Asia and Europe

UBS GROUP AG started a sweeping round of job cuts at its global wealth management unit in Europe and Asia, targeting dismissals across-the-board as new co-head Iqbal Khan seeks to make his mark on the business.

UBS has cut as much as 20% of the work force in some European teams and is reducing management layers in Asia to bring clients closer to top decision makers, people with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. Asia has introduced a new organizational structure and will be followed by Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa. Job losses are taking place at every level from managing directors to assistants, the people said.

Mr. Khan and co-head Tom Naratil are restructuring UBS’ most important business to rein in costs and speed up decision making after Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti gave them 60 days to devise a plan to turn around the unit. While UBS hasn’t communicated the extent of the cuts, people familiar with the matter have said it will likely affect about 500 employees. That comes after thousands of investment banking dismissals over the past decade as UBS pivoted toward private banking.

As part of the changes, UBS is dismantling a unit dedicated to the ultra rich — moving some client advisers into the regional divisions and others into its Globally Family Office unit — while also dividing the Europe, Middle East, and Africa or EMEA wealth business into three regions.

Mr. Khan pursued a regional strategy when he ran the international wealth management unit at Credit Suisse, splitting his division into seven regions to boost local decision making. Now he and Mr. Naratil are doing the same at UBS, some two years after the bank merged its Americas and global wealth units into a single business.

“We are taking steps to make it easier and faster for our clients to do business with UBS,” the bank said in a statement. “Those changes impact a small number of roles.”

UBS wants to hand more decision making power to its client advisers and reduce the time previously spent going through as many as seven layers of managers for approvals, people familiar with the reorganization said earlier.

The US and Switzerland are likely to be less affected by the restructuring at the wealth management division, one person said.

Mr. Khan is also working on other changes at the business, saying UBS could score “quick wins” by increasing lending, a strategy he also used at Credit Suisse. The bank is targeting $20 billion to $30 billion in net new loans per year.

To help speed up time-consuming negotiations between wealth managers and the investment bank, UBS also plans to manage loans originated in the wealth unit through a separate risk book in its investment bank. It’s eliminating a unit within wealth management called Investment Products and Solutions (IPS) that was the primary engine for coming up with financing structures and investment products.

Much of the work done by the IPS unit mimicked the investment bank and resulted in duplication of certain jobs such as those in structuring, sales and trading, which will now be part of a next round of job eliminations, said people with knowledge of the matter. — Bloomberg

Microsoft releases chat scanner to detect child sex predators

MICROSOFT Corp. will share a tool it’s been using on its Xbox gaming service to scan online text chats and detect adults seeking to groom and exploit children for sexual purposes.

Codenamed Project Artemis, the technique combs through historical messages and looks for indicative patterns and characteristics before assigning a probability rating. That can then be used by companies to decide which conversations on their platforms should get a closer look by a human moderator, wrote Courtney Gregoire, Microsoft’s chief digital safety officer, in a blog post.

Tech companies are grappling with how to stem a rising tide of child pornography and exploitation online as images and nefarious texts overwhelm moderators and private chat apps make detection tougher. Companies in the industry reported 45 million online images of child sexual abuse in 2018, a record high, the New York Times reported in September. Adult predators use built-in chat functions on popular video games and private messaging apps to groom children and solicit nude photos, sometimes by posing as kids themselves.

Microsoft’s so-called grooming detection technique promises to help rein in that behavior with textual communications, but it still leaves voice chat in multiplayer games like Fortnite unaddressed, which serves as another avenue for child sex predators.

The project started at a Nov. 2018 hackathon co-sponsored with two child welfare groups that looked not just at new technology ideas but also legal and policy issues. Since then, Microsoft has been developing the tools in collaboration with the companies behind online video game Roblox and messenger app Kik, The Meet Group, which owns social meeting apps like MeetMe and Skout, and Thorn, a non-profit organization co-founded by actors Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to fight child sex abuse.

The team was led by Dartmouth College Computer Science Professor Hany Farid, who previously worked with Microsoft to build PhotoDNA, a tool that’s been used by 150 companies and organizations to find and report images of child sexual exploitation. Farid has written in opposition to the proliferation of end-to-end encryption in social and private messaging services, arguing that it makes detecting and preventing child abuse more difficult.

Starting Jan. 10, Thorn will handle licensing of Project Artemis, which is built on Microsoft patents and available for free to qualifying online services, who can sign up for it by emailing antigrooming@thorn.org. Microsoft said it is already using the technique for Xbox chats and looking at doing the same for Skype. — Bloomberg

Google cutting web cookies, ending tracking tool for ads

ALPHABET Inc.’s Google within two years plans to block a common way businesses track online surfers in its Chrome browser, endorsing costly changes to how the Web operates as it tries to satisfy increased privacy demands from users.

Google’s plan is to restrict advertising software companies and other organizations from connecting their browser cookies to websites they do not operate, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.

Apple made a similar move in 2017 in its Safari browser, but Chrome’s global market share is more than three times greater at about 64%, according to tracking company Statcounter.

Though the two-year goal is new, Google’s announcement had been expected within the industry for months. Financial analysts expect minimal effect on Google’s own ad business because it gathers data on users in many other ways.

But shares of some rival advertising software companies fell on Tuesday, including Criteo SA by 8% and Trade Desk Inc. by 1.4%.

For nearly three decades, cookies placed by relatively unknown companies on nearly every website have fueled advertising on the internet.

Cookies are a tool within browsers that allow website operators to save data about users, so that for example, they can keep a particular user logged into a website over multiple days.

But cookies also have given obscure software vendors, whose technology is used by website operators, a broad window into which webpages a user is visiting. When shared with advertisers, the data enable predictions about which ads the individual would find relevant.

Users and regulators have questioned how businesses with access to the browsing data store and share them since the advent of the cookie. But over the last three years, data breaches and new privacy laws in California and Europe have prompted major changes at internet businesses.

Google said its new restriction would not go into effect until alternatives that Google considers more privacy-preserving are viable. Any major transition in Web technology requires significant investment by website operators, and it remains unclear whether more limited data on users would depress online ad prices.

Justin Schuh, a director for Chrome engineering at Google, said initial feedback to proposals it announced in August “gives us confidence that solutions in this space can work.” — Reuters

Deadline to end use of Libor in doubt as lenders stall on software changes

LONDON — Many banks in Britain are unlikely to hit an October deadline to stop writing loans tied to the discredited Libor benchmark as they grapple with upgrading to crucial new software that allows them to use replacement reference rates, industry sources said.

It is another sign of how practical considerations are undermining regulators’ desire for banks to move away from using the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), which is embedded in some $350 trillion of financial products worldwide.

Once dubbed the world’s most important number, Libor was discredited after the 2008 financial crisis when authorities in the United States and Britain found traders had manipulated it to make a profit.

While the October target is an industry-consensus goal rather than a regulatory edict, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) told Reuters it would take a dim view of lenders and borrowers ignoring the deadline.

But the two rival firms that supply loan management software to the industry said not all banks will be ready, while only a handful of loans linked to alternative rates like Sonia or the Sterling Overnight Index Average have been issued so far.

Fintech firm Finastra, which provides loan pricing and valuation software to more than 80 of the world’s biggest financial firms, launched an update to its LoanIQ software on Nov. 29 to incorporate Sonia-linked loan capabilities.

Only around 15 of Finastra’s 60 major financial clients likely to need the update have so far made the switch, Robert Downs, senior principal product manager at Finastra, told Reuters. He said an institution would usually need 6-18 months to upgrade and test the software given the number of internal systems a bank would have to plug into it.

“It’s been convenient for banks to say they can’t progress because systems aren’t ready yet … the Catch 22 was that the [software] vendors couldn’t get ready until the industry decided how it was going to move forward,” Mr. Downs said.

Gregg Cerniglia, who leads Finastra rival FIS’s competing loan platform ACBS, said most but not all of its clients will be ready by the third-quarter deadline.

Both executives said small lenders in particular have been slower to upgrade their systems.

Edwin Schooling Latter, director of markets and wholesale policy at the FCA said banks would need to clearly demonstrate how they plan to quickly upgrade their systems if they miss the deadline.

“Firms who don’t have plans to end their dependency on Libor lending after that date will face a lot of questions from us as to how they are managing the risks,” he said.

Industry sources said reasons for delays included strained resources at smaller banks already overwhelmed by major projects such as Brexit, and the preference of many borrowers to stick with the Libor rate.

Lenders are also wary that clients will be reluctant to use the new rates — which calculate interest by compounding the daily rate over the period of time matching the loan’s duration — as it will not be clear in advance what it will cost them.

“It’s a massive undertaking. No systems are up to scratch yet,” one senior banker said. — Reuters

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